


For Esteefee

by Mira



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-09
Updated: 2011-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-15 13:11:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mira/pseuds/Mira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winter, 1854. Dr. Welsh at Lasalle [Wisconsin] told me that the prairie grass there was over the tops of carriages, or higher than the head of a man riding on horseback, so that really a man not accustomed to the prairie could easily get lost in the grass!<br/>--Ralph Waldo Emerson</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Esteefee

Rodney tumbled out the wormhole, shockingly cold, ice encrusted, and then Hawaii warm as he staggered onto the new world.

"Huh," Ronon said, shaking his head. Water dripped from the beads in his beard.

Beside him, Teyla wrung out her hair, ice crackling. "I have never experienced such passage through the gate," she said. Rodney started to explain why but John said, "Whoa," and he turned to look for John. His damp black tee-shirt clung to his skinny frame revealing a line of blue plaid boxers above his trousers. Beyond him, Rodney saw nothing but grass.

"Huh," Ronon said again, and pushed forward to stand beside John. The grass was taller than Teyla, tall enough that Rodney's horizon was absurdly limited as if they stood on a tiny asteroid and not a world as large as Earth. He put a hand on Teyla's shoulder and rose to his toes, hoping to see more. Teyla looked up at him.

John glanced back at them, sliding his dark glasses down his nose enough that Rodney could see his eyes. "This what the database described?"

"Not really," Rodney said. He let go of Teyla and walked back to the stargate, awkwardly climbing the weathered steps to the base of the ring and then, clinging to the ring itself, pulled himself higher. The ring felt hot in his hands, though he knew it wasn't heat but naquadah, its molecules vibrating as if sentient beneath his hands.

Ignoring the familiar if disquieting sensation, Rodney stared out at this grassy world. Plumes of green and tassels of gold undulated in graceful waves as the light breeze rolled over them, tracing patterns Rodney could not decipher.

"Well?" John called.

Rodney didn't answer. He twisted to look behind the gate, and to either side. He heard Ronon shift impatiently, but no one else spoke. The world, Rodney discovered, was silent but for the soughing of the grasses as they moved in rhythms strange. He wondered if they were communicating and, if so, with whom. Then he lost his footing and stumbled again to the dusty apron of the gate. "Nothing visual," he announced, pulling from a vest pocket the life signs detector. "Not even a hill, and nothing human."

"No one?" John asked. "No buildings? No ruins?"

Ronon pushed past Rodney to swing easily up the side of the gate, holding himself in a way Rodney was sure was impossible. "He's right," Ronon said. "Nothing and no one."

"What did the database say?" Teyla asked. "That a great civilization governed near here?"

"Hm-mm," Rodney answered absently. "Or at least that's what we thought it said -- you know those Ancients. But there is something, a strong regular energy pulse."

"Where?" they asked in unison.

"That's just it. Everywhere."

Ronon released his hold and landed lightly beside Rodney, peering into the LSD. "Wow," he said. "Look."

They all crowded around Rodney, pressing against him as if personal boundaries didn't exist for them and, after his first flash of irritation, Rodney realized such boundaries no longer did exist for them, nor did he mind. In fact, his annoyance flowered into pleasure, a fearsome pleasure at the feel of their bodies against his: Teyla's head against his shoulder, Ronon's hand on his back, and John's hands on Rodney's around the LSD. The rush of feeling grew so powerful that Rodney's knees buckled and his eyes shut against the brilliance of the day. The was, he though, joy.

Then he opened his eyes and said, "Yes, yes, look at the images here -- the pulsing? No source or --"

"Everywhere," Ronon said in his rumbly voice. Teyla sighed.

John's hands, warm on Rodney's, squeezed lightly. "How do you interpret these readings?" he asked.

"Too soon to say."

"Should we --" Teyla gestured outward, toward the grasses surrounding them.

"Why not?" Rodney said, still staring into the LSD.

"Any direction?" John asked.

"Um." He looked up at Ronon, who shrugged.

"Wait," John said. "Is the gate itself causing the, the disturbance?"

"No," Rodney said confidently, straightening up but keeping the LSD out. He pointed. "Eleven o'clock, about two kilometers." He knew that his teammates knew that the direction and distance was arbitrary but why not? No life signs registered at all except theirs and the slow pulse of what could be the planet itself, or the grasses, or the air, and no technology flickered. Any direction would do.

Ronon led the way, slowly pushing the tall stalks aside. Walking wasn't easy, but intriguing, Rodney found. He grew more and more aware of the quality of the air: breathless beneath the breeze stirring the tops of the grasses, and heavily scented with the juicy essence of the plants. The ground beneath his sneakered feet was bumpy with old roots and bent stalks and he found it more comfortable and comforting to hold the back of Teyla's vest while behind him John gripped Rodney's.

Thus they trailed beneath the sighing grasses, following Ronon's lead until he stopped them at their arbitrary destination. They stood in a circle with Rodney at the center and he felt swollen with affection for these people, their faces so dear and familiar, and had to swallow hard before he could speak. "I think it's the world," he finally said. They bent over the LSD and watched in silence as the light beat steadily and strongly.

After a long while, John said quietly, "It _is_ the world." Ronon and Teyla nodded, and Rodney did not disagree. He felt un-estranged from this strange world, as if his heart were beating with the pulse of the image, and in time with his teammates. They stood silently, their breath light, the susurrant grasses sheltering them, not oppressive but safeguarding, and Rodney found himself saying, "The people who were here, the ones mentioned in the database, have gone -- maybe ascended ---"

"But they remain," Teyla finished with conviction, and the others nodded. John's hand on Rodney's back where he gripped Rodney's vest pressed warmly against him, and as if lightning flashed on this brilliant day, as if in a reverse eclipse, Rodney saw the connections among them, tightly woven after years of work and love, and none more deep than his and John's.

They lingered there in the warm afternoon for perhaps an hour or perhaps a lifetime, but eventually the connection loosened and with a sigh Rodney turned toward the gate, invisible but for the trail of tilting grass stalks they had left in their passage. "I miss Kanaan and Torren," Teyla said suddenly, her voice breaking, and her longing for them was so strong that Rodney shared it and saw by their faces that John and Ronon did, too.

"'Melia," Ronon said, a little shyly, and Teyla took his hand, following a half step behind him let him lead the way back.

Rodney sneaked a glance at John who was smiling at him with the familiar expression that Rodney suddenly and only now understood. "Um," he said. John lightly punched his shoulder, then took his hand and pulled Rodney after him, something, Rodney thought, he had been doing from the moment they met, and why it had taken him this long to realize he couldn't understand, but as they stood before the gate, still touching, little jolts of electricity jumping from John's arm to Rodney's and back, he thought this world had somehow joined them -- no, had somehow made him see the join and how profound it had grown in those years.

Then Teyla entered the glyphs for Atlantis and the stargate boiled out its icy blue and with a last look around them Rodney followed them into the wormhole with John and his last thoughts on that grassy world were _John, always John, always John._


End file.
